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Which school has the most Portland startup cred?

Rick Turoczy on February 7, 2012

So, I just wrote about Reed Start Up Lab. And I mentioned that Portland startups Urban Airship, Puppet Labs, AppFog, LuckySort, and Stayhound all have Reedies as founders.

But are they the leading school?

I know Lewis & Clark has Geoloqi. And OSU and PSU can also lay claim to Urban Airship. But what other Oregon schools have had a helping hand in building the Portland startup scene?

Well, let’s run a little poll to find out. And this is open to more than just founders. Even if you just went to one of these schools briefly. Not graduated, mind you. Just attended. (And yes, you can choose more than one.)

Please chime in. And let’s see which school has the most Portland startup cred.

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(Image courtesy Nathanael Shelley. Used under Creative Commons.)

Published by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy

  1. Which Oregon colleges are churning out startup founders? AngelList knows « Silicon Florist April 27, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    […] back when we ran that survey of the schools that had the most impact on the Portland startup scene? Well, now there’s something a little more […]

  2. Eas February 17, 2012 at 12:07 am

    Reed: Howard Vollum graduated from Reed with a Physics degree, and went on to found Tektronix, which was in many ways the mother of Oregon’s tech industry. If not for Tektronix, would Intel and HP have had a strong presence in the area, would there have been a Mentor Graphics, etc?

  3. Jmartens February 13, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Just noticed that AngelList now has a profile field for “College.” So far, there the stats:

    Oregon: 11
    Reed: 4
    Oregon St: 3
    Portland State: 2
    Willamette: 2
    U Portland: 1
    Lewis & Clark: 1
    Linfield: 1
    Western: 1
    Eastern: 1
    OHSU: 0

    http://angel.co/colleges

  4. Christian Reed February 13, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    I’d like to see a census.

  5. Chris Axtell February 8, 2012 at 1:25 pm

    Great talent and entrepreneurs coming out of all schools.

    Here are a few facts about the PSU Business Accelerator, PSU’s startup incubator, to support the poll results that PSU has mucho startup cred.

    Since 2005 The PSU Business Accelerator has worked with 91 client startup companies.

    Over the last five years (2007-2011) the companies at the PSU Accelerator have…
    -> raised $109 Million in private funding
    -> won $12 Million in public grants
    -> employed ~200 per year
    -> worked with 435 PSU students

    Graduate companies include: Jama Software (2011 Inc 500 Co), Giftango (PSU alumni on mgmt team), Eleven Wireless, BlueVolt, Jive, Exit Games, Perpetua, ViaLanguage & more.

  6. David McKelvey February 8, 2012 at 9:16 am

    Win or lose, this is a great community for tech startups and seeing all our educational institutions (L&C included) work toward more entrepreneurial opportunities for students is just fantastic to see. What’s more is that it’s essential to growing the community further.

    Cheers all!

  7. Shelley Gunton February 8, 2012 at 7:52 am

    Great new developments at PSU! A new Entrepreneurship Club has just formed and a new Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship is being created. I’m the new Executive Director. Watch for more at PSU!!

  8. Akshay Dodeja February 7, 2012 at 9:15 pm

    PSU > ALL

  9. John Keith February 7, 2012 at 9:13 pm

    Well golly, I graduated from OGI, which split into both OHSU school of science and engineering and Portland State when it dissolved. Yes, I have a graduate degree from a non-existent institution. Learned a lot though. Shall I count them both? 🙂

  11. Judah McAuley February 7, 2012 at 8:45 pm

    I can’t help but think that Reed’s percentage should somehow be an irrational number 🙂

  12. Rick Turoczy February 7, 2012 at 10:50 am

    Well get them to vote then 😉

  13. Amber Case February 7, 2012 at 10:44 am

    Small Society is L&C as well, and a lot of CTOs are from L&C too.

  14. Jmartens February 7, 2012 at 10:12 am

    I love my alma mater (Go Ducks!) but will be the fist to say that schools don’t have anywhere near the impact they’d like to think they have.

  15. EvaCatHerder February 7, 2012 at 9:53 am

    FWIW CubeSpace’s founders are both Reedoralhistory, as were several of our employees. We did sneak one Lewis & Clark grad in too.

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